Television for the People: Americafree.tv

Americafree.tv calls itself "telivision for the people, by the people...television broadcasted across the internet...everyone can watch what they want." Founded in 2007, they have reached over 4 million views. It is a place where independant film makers/producers and just about anyone can upload their projects and share them with audiences all over the world, live. Americafree.tv works to support and promote these people every day; there is a donation option where you can donate money to help fund future projects of the film makers you love the most, as well as support other artists.




On the front page of the site there's a "live chat" section which is basically where you can type in messages and have them appear in semi-transparent boxes over the main video screen of whatever you're watching. People type back to you, provided people are actually on when you are. This lets you "talk" to people while you watch your movie.



The command bar for the video your watching seems Youtube inspired. There is also a button that lets you cycle through different channels. You can read reviews on the movie, a description, and view a donation option called "chip in" as well. Of course, the users write the reviews so if no one has written one you won't see a review.



There is no "signing up" on Americafree.tv at all. If you want to leave a comment or a review, you just put in your name and complete a CAPTCHA and send in your comment.



This site literally is like TV. There is no pause button. There are different channels, and each has different films showing between different times. If you want to see a film that will be showing at a later time, there is a "remind me" function that asks for your email, and one will be sent to remind you the movie is playing. The site also does have commercials, but they are short and infrequent.

Norway Gets Net Neutrality!

Several ISPs and other communications companies in the wonderful country of Norway have signed on to an agreement for "Nettnøytralitet", or in English, "Net Neutrality. Even though internet restriction/discrimination is pretty rare in Norway, the companies who've signed on are just making sure they act before anything does happen, a wise decision I believe.

The agreement has three basic rules:

1) Users must be given complete and accurate information about the service they purchase

2) Users must be allowed to send and receive content of their choice, use and receive the applications and services of their choice, and connect and use any hardware that won't harm the network

3) The connection must not be discriminated against based on application, server, content, sender, or receiver.

There are more to these rules, including some exceptions and safeguards. The basic idea this agreement is supporting is that people should be able to freely chose the service they want to provide internet and use it, but that service shouldn't act as a "gatekeeper" of their internet usage for them.

Edgar Müller - Amazing Streetartist!

Traditionally, street painting involves reproducing great works of art, just directly onto the actual pavement. It's been around since the 1500's where it first started in Italy, and has filtered its way up through Europe, the Americas, and the rest of the world.

Now, to business:


Edgar Müller is a German street artist; he paints pictures on the pavement, massive ones. Mr. Müller, apart from painting normal things, paints masterpieces that, when looked at from the correct angle, appear as a 3D illusion. His last major project in August took three days to complete; he moved a street in Ireland into the Iceage. It was a three part project to make massive 3D street paintings that was sponsored by the Goethe Institute in Germany.

In case you were wondering, the above picture was done in chalk and there is no gaping chasm flanked by walls of ice in the sidewalk.


The below picture: cutting open a German street and revealing the blue below...


To see more of Müller's paintings, other streetartists's works, and read more about it, please go here. It's Edgar's main site (as well as his partner's) and includes photos as well as videos on just how they do what they do. Their company is called "Die Strassenmaler", which means "The streetpainters" in German.

Netfilx Vows: Soley Online On-Demand Streaming by 2010

Netflix has vowed that by 2010, a new plan that offers on demand on line streaming only plan will be offered to the public. They believe they are taking the first step in a world that will eventually live the physical DVD behind completely, so they're preparing for this. Netflix hopes to eventually offer streaming to, well, basically every screen hooked up to something with an internet connection. Right now they have more than 12,000 possible movie titles that you can stream to your computer or TV, (you can even use Netflix to stream content to your Xbox, for those who didn't know that...)

Is Netflix on the right track here? Companies like iTunes and other online music stores offering only digital downloads prove it is.

Company Logo

This is my logo for my company which helps create and design concept characters and creatures for various types of media used in the entertainment industry.

I chose the Charlemagne Std font for my initials because it has a feel to it which is reminiscient of Medieval times and of the fantasy genera. Since what my company will be creating will be fantasy based, I thought that the Charlemagne font would be appropriate to use on the logo. The font aslo has a sense of steadfastness, which shows our commitment to helping the customer with their project no matter what and to making the project look great.

I chose the Chapparal Pro font for the tagline to create a sense of friendliness and creativity that says we are fun and nice but know what we are doing.

I created the logo of a one eyed winged creature to represent creativity and innovativeness. It also represents pretty much what the company does, which is creating creatures and characters, as mentioned above.

Video Game Price Decrease Brings %3000 Sales Increase

Gabe Newell at Valve has proved what many gamers and parents who have to pay for their kid's games have known all along: they're just too expensive and more people would buy more of them if the prices mercifully dropped. The larger the sale, they found that they sold WAY more games. 

People have finally woken up. 

Store 10 Terabits of Data, In One Square Inch

Scientists at UC Berkley and at University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed a technology that could potentially allow one to store about 250 DVDs on a device the size of a quarter!  This new technology will allow the digital storage of electronics to improve dramatically, vastly, amazingly! 

Read about just how they did this here.

Just wait until this becomes impractical to produce, 'till the manufacturers decide it isn't worth the cost....just wait for it. =( 

Missing Hulu Content on Boxee

What's going on here? Is someone playing a joke? Did I decide to pull some strings and have removed Family Guy just to annoy you? No my friends, something much more sinister is going on......there are dark forces at work here...

Okay okay, I exaggerated. The supremely popular site that allows you to view clips and episodes of various television shows, Hulu, has just recently announced that they will be pulling their content off of Boxee. So those episodes of 24 you wanted to watch on Boxee, yah, that's not going to happen. Maybe you should go outside inside and play badminton with your aunt. Or you could go on Hulu and watch it.

Hulu is deeply sorry about this, and has some words for the mourners of now missing Boxee content, and Hulu users here on their blog.

Violent Video Games Do Not the Psycopath Make

This will make thousands of "violent game critics" bash their heads against the wall, which is hopefully covered with some substance which will induce some reason into them. A new book called The Trouble With Boys by Peg Tyre takes a new perspective on violent video games and their effect on, specifically, boys.

In her book, she reveals that boys "get expelled from preschool at four times the rates of girls....they are prescribed the lion's share of ADHD medication...get most of the C's and D's in middle school, and they drop out of high school more than girls...."

So what is to be done? Tyre has this to say: "let boys be boys by simply letting them engage in the aggressive fantasies that come to them naturally." Basically playing games like Halo and Battlefield 2142 let boys act out their aggressive impulses in a safe and non-destructive way. It's an important thing for their development and also can help relieve stress. (It also can be beneficial because the games usually will place the gamer in some type of heroic role. You against the enemy: you win, that's great!)

The Trouble With Boys points out that all this craze and stigma against "violent video games" started because of all the school shootings like Columbine and outbreaks of violence in the 1990's, and people adopted sort of a "zero-tolerance policy" towards every type of aggression, even that which comes naturally and can be channeled in better ways. Hopefully society will get over this soon once they open their eyes to the research out there. Violent video games do not an overly aggressive and disturbed child make.

To clear this up for you, the only "violence" that video games are said to induce is create a slight increase in aggression for a couple minutes after playing, largely because of the hormones that excite your brain and get it revved up have been circulating around while you play. This "aggression" will just make it more likely that you will throw your pencil at someone lightly, not make you go into a depression and start massacring people. If someone is already mentally disturbed/ill, then the video games can influence them, as anything can influence those people.

The millions of gamers out there with no record of homicide are living proof to attest to this, as am I and my brother. But what's this? Do I hear a voice in the background yell out "What about Columbine?!" Let me clear that up for you too. The perpatrators of Columbine were already mentally disturbed, Erric Harris was clinically diagnosed as a malevolent psycopath, and Dyland Klebold had this whole other set of problems. The fact that those two people played video games that were "violent" had nothing to do with the massacre, neither did the music they listened to or how they dressed. Many of you may remember what a social paranoia this caused against certain music generas and video games, as well as the goth culture, which Dylan and Erric were not in any way a part of but people for some misguided reason associated them with, but I digress...The point is that video games with violent content, music, and other media were not responsible for the tragedy at Columbine. The only thing responsible for it were two disturbed individuals. Don't believe how messed up they were? Take a look at **this**, it's Harris's journal.

***Warning: suitable only for mature audiences. Contains graphic profanity, strong violence, strong racism, and high levels of objectionable content.

Standardized Cellphone Chargers (Finally....)

Or maybe not finally. Depends where you live. European Commissioner for Industry Günter Verheugen says that "severe" measure will be taken unless companies in the EU start to do something about all the different cellphone chargers you need. He's just one more person tired of buying a new charger every single time he gets a new phone and frustrated when his previous charger is comlpetely useless when he gets a new phone. He's also concerned about all the waste that piles up because of people tossing out their chargers every 3-4 years. EU cellphone makers don't feel the same way about standardizing their chargers though because of the differences in voltage and battery requirements across the EU. Change comes slowly sometimes....




Maybe if people over their get their chargers standardized, people will demand for that here. I don't know, maybe. No harm in trying.
This picture on the left shows one way that companies are dealing with this multi-charger situation.



Read about this here. (The main story, not that weird multi-charger....)

YouTube Videos: $0.99

Google is expanding its sphere of influence even further and into YouTube, offering users to download videos in a high quality MP4 format with Google Checkout. Some of Google's partners will also be able to do this.

The videos will get a Creative Commons license, so no worries little video makers out there. Well maybe you should still worry, but at least you have some legal backing now....

These videos will be DRM free.

Terabit Ethernet (!)

"Researchers from Australia, Denmark, and China have combined efforts to show the feasibility of terabit-per-second Ethernet over fiber-optic cables. The solution involves a photonic chip that uses laser light for switching signals, and a form of the exotic material type, chalcogenide....."

Yay! Now the only problem is receiving this super fast information.

You should probably read about this yourself, I won't do justice to it trying to explain it. 

Hybrid Laptop: Linux + Windows

Dell has some new laptops, the E4200 and the E4300, that can boot up with either Windows from your dual core Intel chip (x86) or Linux on a ARM chip (the laptop has both of course). The purpose of this is for Windows to run "heavier" applications that require more juice (because it's Windows and sucks life greedily from your CPU so it can super charge itself for running PowerPoint or something) and Linux for a quick start up on your nice little ARM chip to do things like checking your email, which by the way I can do on my phone.

My guess is they're targeting businessmen/women who need to bring a laptop along with them on their frequent travels so they can type up charts on Microsoft Excel, but also need to check their email, which again, I can do on my phone. I'm not saying it's a bad thing though, Linux would be great for people who don't want to wait forever for Windows to boot up. Then once they had to get serious and work on their spread charts some more, they could get back onto Windows and do that.

Something here seems a little suspicious to me, since Linux is running on the ARM chip. The news articles make it sound like Linux can't handle heavier tasks, but I think it would actually be the little ARM that can't handle them, not Linux itself. Those little processors are found in things like calculators, phones, PDAs, and iPods...you get the idea. How long did your last calculator last, and it turned on the second you pushed the button, right? Well...Linux can run on an x86 processor just like Windows, but this new laptop has Linux running off of the ARM chip. I guess this is some energy saving and convenience laptop or something if you want to check your email and then use some Microsoft Office programs.

Unfortunately, how many people are going to know what it means that Linux doesn't get to run off of the x86??? If they underestimate Linux, it isn't Linux's fault, it's the fault of the people who put Linux on the ARM.

Berlin Film Festival

The 59th annual Berlin Film Festival (the Berlinale) will have many films with a special focus on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall and of the fall of communism. Many films shown will be about that subject, or have been made in Eastern Europe/a country under communist influence. The festival runs from the 5th to the 15th of February, and so far a record of 270,000 tickets have been sold, 30,000 more than the previous year.


Berlin Film Festival website:
Here, just choose your language and you're in.


Above is a picture of the award given out, as you can see, it's a golden bear. The bear is a symbol of Berlin, so they give out a golden statue of one at the awards. At the bottom is an inscription that basically means "Berlin International Filmfestival". You know...if you say "Berlin" with the proper accent as the Germans do, it should sound a little like "Bear-lin" which helps you see how the symbol of Berlin is a bear. Cool huh?

Rent Scarface and Halo 2 at the same time

For you Blockbuster Total Access members, or those who desperately wish with all their hearts that they were, you will now be able to rent video games as well as movies. At first this magical service will only be available to a select group of chosen members. Okay well not that exclusive but you probably won't be able to use this service. Hold onto your fedora and don't panic, because that's not it. You'll be able to use this probably half way through this 2009. This is a step up and away for potential company failure for Blockbuster, because now they'll be more in the competition instead of out of it. That's what capitalism is about isn't it? Now Gamefly and Gottaplay might have to watch out for themselves, because Blockbuster is in the game now.

Someday you will be able to watch Road to Perdition, and then two minutes later frag out some n00bs, eat pizza, and increase your rank to #2 on the server. Someday. Just keep on waiting.

iPhone: now for $99

Apple is getting ready to release a $99 iPhone over the summer as well as release some performance updates for their 3G iPhone. This new $99 one might not be the brightest idea in the Milky Way unfortunately; they'll need to sell three $99 iPhones to make up for their gross profits they get from the regulary priced ones.

Read about this here while the link lasts...muahaha....

^- The much exhalted iPhone.

Dann was IST ihr Name? (Then what IS your name?)

The wonderful land of Germany has a new minister of economic affairs; everyone's pretty happy about this because as you may or may not know, Germany is in a recession, as is the rest of the world, and this guy has to fix it. (Well in Germany at least.) His full name is Karl-Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. But some funny person decided to edit the Wikipedia artice and add "Wilhelm" into the name.
When Herr von und zu Guttenberg was appointed, many media outlets in Germany wanted to know his full name to satisfy the people's burning desire to know this mans entire name, no matter how long it was. They looked it up on Wikipedia, and there was his name. Or so they thought.

Many reputable sources in Germany, such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Rheinische Post, TAZ, and spiegel.de, reported Mr. von und zu Guttenberg's name as "Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg." They put the story out, and people believed it, and so "proving" that the name on Wikipedia was, infact, correct. They made this name a fact because so many people rely on the media for reliable/accurate information.

Sleep easy, because the mistake was corrected...just know that the media is not infallible. So this serves as a humourous and light example to not believe everything you hear.

Tschüs! =)

Huston, we have a problem. I'm out of coffee.

An unmanned Russian spacecraft started up bright and early this morning to deliver coffee, chocolate, oxygen, propellent and supplies for the people aboard the International Space Station including a verrrryyyyy special spacesuit from the great land of Russia.

Expected arrival is Friday.

Read about this here, while the link lasts.

(Imagine if the supplies were being delivered in that...I'd want to fly that, who cares about autopilot! Okay okay okay, there are a bunch more cooler space ships out there but still! I want to fly one!)

64GB Data Chips from SanDisk

Soon you will be able to buy 64GB data chips courtesy of SanDisk, thanks to their newly acquired X4 technology which allows for the storage of 4 bits of data in each memory cell, 2 bits up from your typical chip. Now, starting the first half of 2009, you can store all those pictures of your family you took on that vacation to Norway last summer...lucky you. You will surely make all your friends jealous.

Unsurprisingly, this technology was developed in Japan alongside Toshiba, well "co-developed" by them. Toshiba is also a co-owner for this new technology, which by the way has a performance rate of 7.8 MB per second.

You may read the full story here, just as soon as you finish your work your boss wanted done half an hour ago.